My mom recently turned 65 and so my sister and I wanted to do something special for her birthday. We looked for months to find something fun and different for the weekend. We found what we thought was going to be the greatest gift ever, a weekend trip to a Murder Mystery. It was at this really cool old castle in the backwoods of Ohio, a perfect setting for what could only be assumed to be a grand adventure waiting to happen.
There wasn’t much info on the mystery itself on their site, but we had heard all about these events and figured it would be a great thing to do as a family. It looked as though they did these multiple times throughout the year and the reviews on their site were raving. So, we pulled the trigger and booked our room. We figured the lack of info on the site was to keep the mystery itself, um, mysterious(?). Well, we were wrong. Boy, were we wrong.
We arrived to the castle with the expectation that we would be assigned characters or something like that and given a clue to find the next clue, etc. We also assumed, silly us, that this would be a leisurely weekend with a work-at-your-own-pace kinda feel. Nope, nope, and nope. What we walked into can only be described as chaos and crazies. There were dozens and dozens of “clues” all over the castle to which you had to record and work on the second you walked into the door. There were no characters, you were just you, walking around with your head cut off. There were also 50 other people there, which we soon realized had almost all done this before, multiple times. We were the outcasts and the weirdos for being so confused and overwhelmed.
Had one chosen to follow the guidelines they set out, you would literally not eat lunch, ever, you would be on a constant lookout to solve clues and puzzles to unlock god knows what, because honestly, as far as we could tell, none of the clues or puzzles meant or gave you anything to get you closer to finding the murderer. You were practically forced into participating against your will in these weird night time hunts in 30-degree weather, all while being chased by “zombies” who could attack you at any time. To put it as mildly as I possibly can, it was overwhelming.
Thankfully myself and my family have never had a problem telling someone we were going to do our own thing. So, we cut out on Saturday during the day and explored the town and sites around us. We were shunned when we came back for missing yet another ridiculous and completely useless event while we were out enjoying our vacation. God, forbid we do what we want on our vacation, right?! All in all, we had a good weekend, because we laughed til we cried at the ridiculousness of the weekend and the people around us. But honestly, you couldn’t pay me enough to ever do this again. My sister and I learned a big lesson, no more going outside the box without a better idea of what we’re getting into.
So, this of course got me thinking about how we got there in the first place, and why we should have never ended up there. There’s a little thing called Niche Marketing, and boy was this the perfect type of event for this. Basically, with niche marketing you are marketing to a very specific audience with a very specific taste. In this case, they should have been marketing to the diehard Dungeons and Dragons players of the world. Those who don’t mind walking around a freezing forest at 1am to find a plastic body part, and creep under an old crawl space to grab the next clue. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with fitting into this niche, but me and my family, unfortunately for us, did not.
The intensity required to enjoy and be successful at this event was completely lost on us. We could have saved ourselves a lot of time and money had they not been doing Mass Marketing. They are marketing to the masses for something that the mass majority of people would not enjoy. Their website and marketing basically is a come-one-come-all angle without any reference or reason to believe it’s not as you think it would be. Now, the big problem with mass marketing to what should be a niche market is not really the time or money loss for your patrons, it’s the potential for bad reviews for your business.
After having now experienced the weekend, I revisited the site and realized a detail I should have paid closer attention to, they post their own reviews. Which means, they get to filter their own reviews. Of course they were raving, they only post the good ones. So now, I look closer at Yelp and Trip Advisor and see a clearer picture of what I was too blind to see in my excitement of an out-of-the-box family vacation. So what now, do I blast them for misleading me, or do I suck it up and realize I should have done better research. The problem is that I see the mistake as fixable, they just need to define their audience better. Own what you are and go for it. Don’t try to appease the masses, accept your niche and wear it proudly. So, I did the only thing I could think of, send them a carefully worded review with my honest feedback about my experience and why I think some tweaking on their website would lead to happier customers.
Who knows if I’ll ever hear back from them. My guess would be no. But the fact remains, if you are a niche product, market to your niche. Rarely does an item fit into the broad enough spectrum to go full mass market. You will find repeat business and happier customers if you market to the people that actually want your product. And, if you’re looking to book a trip anytime soon, and it seems a bit out of the norm for you, I cannot stress enough to read ALL the reviews! You’ll be happy you took that extra 5 minutes, trust me.
New Light Tonight 